Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this during a radio broadcast this morning.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation.

Explanation:
The radio broadcast was about The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB).

The news reporter said that UTMB would not lose its (quote) “accredidation” (unquote) in spite of yesterday’s announcement that 3,800 employees there would be laid off.

The noun is correctly spelled A-C-C-R-E-D-I-T-A-T-I-O-N because it comes from the verb “accredit”, which ends with a “t”.

Therefore, the final two syllables of the noun “accreditation” should be pronounced as “tation” (starting with a “t” as in “tango”) instead of as “dation” (starting with a “d” as in “delta”).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “accreditation” — 38,100,000 matches
• “accredidation” — 85,500 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 446-to-1, which is superb.

However, this ratio does not tell the complete story because it covers spellings, not pronunciations.

I believe that the mispronunciation of “accreditation” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to say “dation” than it is to say “tation”.

Solution:
“Accreditation”

I saw this the other day at the Gizmo5 website.

Problem:
A pronoun appeared where a contraction should have appeared.

Explanation:
The full sentence on one of the pages at Gizmo5.com was (quote) “If you can’t find the answer your looking for here please contact us and we’ll be glad to fill in the details.” (unquote).

Beyond the comma that was missing after the word “here”, the bigger problem was that the author of this sentence used the pronoun “your” where the word “you’re” — a contraction for “you are” — should have appeared.

As I have written in at least one other blog post, many speakers of American English tend to make the common English blunder of pronouncing “your” and “you’re” in the same way, even though these two words have different pronunciations.

I believe that these mispronunciations drive what some would call misspellings — writing “your” where “you’re” is required, and vice-versa.

Solution:
“If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for …”

I often see and hear mistakes with these two words.

Problem:
These words are spelled similarly but have different meanings.

Explanation:
The word “affect” is spelled A-F-F-E-C-T.

• As a verb, the word “affect” means to act on or to produce a change in, as in (quote) “You can affect her attitude toward education.” (unquote).
• As a noun, the word “affect” means emotion or feeling, as in (quote) “The psychiatrist said that the patient’s affect could be a symptom of schizophrenia.” (unquote).

The word “effect” is spelled E-F-F-E-C-T.

• As a verb, the word “effect” means to bring about or make happen, as in (quote) “Many people believe that he cannot effect the change that he is promoting.” (unquote).
• As a noun, the word “effect” means consequence or result, as in (quote) “The effects of Hurricane Ike could be seen throughout Houston and Galveston.” (unquote).

It is a common English blunder — at least in American English — to use one of these verbs as a substitute for the other one. It is also a common English blunder to use one of these nouns as a substitute for the other one.

I believe that mistaken interchanging of these two words is due to mispronunciations, which drive misspellings.

Solution:
Memorize the verb and noun definitions of these two words.

I heard this recently during a radio broadcast.

Problem:
The word “then” is not a preposition.

Explanation:
The radio broadcaster said a sentence such as (quote) “The telephone calls to the radio station during this hour were no more frequent then usual.” (unquote).

The problem with this sentence is that the word “then” — spelled T-H-E-N — is not a preposition.

Instead, this word is any of the following:

• adverb, as in (quote) “Prices were higher then.” (unquote), where “then” means (quote) “at that time” (unquote) in this sentence;
• adjective, as in (quote) “The then president of the club was a nice guy.” (unquote), where “then” means (quote) “existing” (unquote) in this sentence;
• noun, as in (quote) “We have not seen a show at the Alley Theatre since then.” (unquote), where “then” means (quote) “that time” (unquote) in this sentence.

What the phrase (quote) “no more frequent then usual” (unquote) requires is a preposition, given that the speaker is comparing (quote) “more frequent” (unquote) with (quote) “usual” (unquote).

The required preposition is “than” — spelled T-H-A-N, not T-H-E-N.

I believe that the common English blunder of using “then” where the preposition “than” is required is due in part to mispronunciation of the preposition “than”, but simple ignorance about these two words certainly could play a part, too.

Solution:
“… no more frequent than usual.”

My wife got this in an email message recently.

Problem:
The word “you’re” is incorrect here.

Explanation:
The complete sentence in the message was (quote) “Please contact me and if you’re school is near by, I may be able to deliver them to you.” (unquote).

The word “you’re” — spelled Y-O-U-APOSTROPHE-R-E — is a contraction of (quote) “you are” (unquote).

Clearly, the message writer did not intend to say (quote) “… and if you are school is near by, …” (unquote); that would be nonsensical.

Instead, the writer was referring to the reader’s school, so he should have used the possessive pronoun “your” — spelled Y-O-U-R.

I believe that the common English blunder of confusing the contraction “you’re” with the possessive pronoun “your” is due to the fact that many American English speakers mistakenly pronounce these two words in the same way.

Solution:
“… and if your school is near by, …”

I frequently hear this and occasionally see this.

Problem:
“Pronounciation” is a misspelling and mispronunciation that makes the writer or speaker sound dumb.

Explanation:
“Pronounciation” is an ignorant conversion of the verb “pronounce” into a noun.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “pronunciation” — 20,700,000 matches
• “pronounciation” — 1,130,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the correct word vs. the incorrect word by a ratio of 18.3-to-1, which is not good, especially given more than a million matches for the incorrect word.

Solution:
“Pronunciation”

I heard this repeatedly across multiple airings of a Barack Obama television ad in the past two days.

Problem:
The second noun was mispronounced, and I misspelled it to match the mispronunciation.

Explanation:
The TV advertisement was for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, and it focused on energy issues.

The complete sentence was (quote) “The hands that install rooves can also install solar panels.” (unquote).

I wondered whether I misheard the voice-over announcer, so I carefully listened to him say (quote) “rooves” (unquote) in the second and subsequent airings.

It is a fairly common English blunder to pronounce the plural of the noun “roof” as (quote) “rooves” (unquote).

Solution:
“The hands that install roofs …”

My wife heard the first word used several times yesterday as a synonym of the second word, and I once worked for someone who regularly made the same mistake.

Problem:
These two words are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The word “simular” — spelled S-I-M-U-L-A-R — dates back to the early 1500s.

The meaning of “simular” as a noun is pretender. The primary meaning of “simular” as an adjective is simulated or counterfeit.

A valid example of the use of “simular” as an adjective would be (quote) “Pleather is simular leather.” (unquote).

The word “similar” — spelled S-I-M-I-L-A-R — dates back to the early 1600s, is only an adjective, and primarily means having a resemblance or likeness.

A valid example of the use of “similar” as an adjective would be (quote) “The two automobiles in the parking lot were so similar that John tried to unlock the wrong one.” (unquote).

I believe that some people mispronounce and/or misspell the adjective “similar” — spelled S-I-M-I-L-A-R — as “simular” — spelled S-I-M-U-L-A-R — because of interference from the verb “simulate”, which does have the vowel “u” in the middle of it.

I doubt that most users of “simular” — with a “u” in the middle — know its true meaning.

Solution:
Use the adjective “simular” when referring to something that is false or simulated or counterfeit. Use the adjective “similar” when referring to a likeness or resemblance.

I see this occasionally and hear this more often.

Problem:
This is a misspelling or mispronunciation of a verb.

Explanation:
“Surpress” — spelled S-U-R-P-R-E-S-S — is a mispelling or mispronunciation of the verb “suppress”, which is spelled S-U-P-P-R-E-S-S.

Given that the first “p” in “suppress” is not usually pronounced, I believe that many American English speakers do not realize that “suppress” is spelled with two “p”s.

However, given the tendency by some speakers to add an “r” to “uh” sounds — as in “idea” pronounced “idear”, or as in “Usher” pronounced “Ursher” — it is not surprising to me that “suppress” can become “supress” instead.

The verb “surprise” is yet another source of interference.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “suppress” — 18,400,000 matches
• “surpress” — 121,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 152:1, which is very good but not excellent.

Solution:
“Suppress”

My wife used to hear this from one of her finance professors.

Problem:
This is a nonsensical mispronunciation of a meaningful phrase.

Explanation:
Everyone is accustomed to thinking of a calendar year when hearing the word “year”.

However, not all companies base their accounting on a calendar year.

For example, a company can set up its fiscal records to encompass the period of April 1 of one year to March 31 of the next year.

This leads to the solution, which is what my wife’s professor consistently mispronounced.

Solution:
“Fiscal Year”